I remember reading a pretty convincing article arguing that the introduction of cars - and abolition of walking the beat - was damaging to policing by consent. vague memory is that being in a car separated officers from being a part of the community they were policing.

Can't find a link or remember the title so it may have been quite some time back - maybe when I still had an FT subscription.

With current budgets and manpower they don't even patrol in cars that much any more, just respond to incidents. That can't be good for avoiding the impression of "us and them".

In the UK, before the police were founded, public-order policing was done by soldiers, who were exactly the sort of repression force that kartan mentions. The Peterloo Massacre was perhaps the apogee of that kind of policing. The establishment of our modern warm and cuddly Peelers was a step in exactly this movement from repression force to citizens service.

RUC?

The non-armament of the UK police does make a huge difference though.

Ah yes - good example of where policing in the UK was actually rather horrible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Ulster_Constabulary

>I'm not sure I'd say that the UK ever had the police as a "repression force"

Said no Irishman ever.

Yeah that is a mistake, but also worth noting that the majority in NI were (historically at least) generally rather in favour of what the RUC got up to. Depends I guess if you regard everyone on the island of Ireland as a Irishman!